A Dash for a Throne by Arthur W. Marchmont

 

A Dash for a Throne 

 

by Arthur W. Marchmont

Insulted by the heir to the Prussian throne, he knocked the bully flat -- and had to fake his own death to avoid public disgrace. And that's when his troubles began . . . A rousing historical tale by the author of "By Right of Sword."

 

 CHAPTER I
MY DEATH

 

"To a man who has been dead nearly five years everything would be forgiven, probably—except his resurrection."

This half-cynical thought was suggested by the extraordinary change which a few hours of one memorable July day had wrought in my circumstances and position.

As the thought occurred to me I was standing in the library of Gramberg Castle, my hands plunged deep in my pockets, deliberately dallying with my fate, as I watched the black dress of the Prince's beautiful daughter moving slowly among the gayly colored flower-beds in the warm sunshine, like a soothing shadow in the brilliant glare.

I was face to face with a temptation which I found infinitely alluring and immeasurably difficult to resist.

For five years I had been enduring an existence of monotonous emptiness, that depressed me till my heart ached and my spirit wearied; and now a chance of change had been thrust upon me, all against my seeking, at which my pulses were beating high with the bound of hope, my blood running once again with the old quick tingling of excitement, and, through the reopened portals of a life akin to that from which I had been thrust, desire, ambition, pleasure, hazard, were all beckoning to me with fascinating invitation.

I turned from the window and threw myself into a deep easy-chair to think.

Five years before I had passed in a moment from a position of Royal favor, with limitless ambition and opportunities, to one where death was avowedly the only alternate.

And no one had recognized this more readily than I myself.

I am half English by birth. My mother was an English woman, and went to the Prussian Court in the small suite of the bride whom "Unser Fritz" carried from England. My father rose very high in Royal favor, and, as a consequence, I was thrown early in life in the company of the young Princes. We grew up close and intimate companions; and when I chose the navy for my profession every facility was employed to insure my advancement. I had been about five years in the navy, and was already a flag-lieutenant, when the smash came. Happily my father and mother were both dead then.

We were not puritans in those days, and there were some wild times. The last of these in which I took a part finished up on the Imperial yacht; and a wild enough time it was.

I had drunk much more freely than the rest—there were only some half-dozen of us altogether—and then, being a quarrelsome, hot-headed fool, I took fire at some words that fell from the Prince, and I gave him the lie direct. Exactly what happened I don't clearly remember; but I know that he flung his wine right at my face, and I, forgetting entirely that he was at once my future Emperor and my commanding officer, clenched my fist and struck him a violent blow in the face which knocked him down. He hit his head in falling, and lay still as death. We thought at first he was dead. What followed can be imagined. I cannot describe it. It sobered the lot of us; and our relief when we found he was not dead, but only stunned, cannot be put in words.

 He was lifted up and laid on the table, his face all ghastly gray-white, save where the mark of my blow on the cheek stood out red and livid—a sight I shall never forget.

When the doctor came we told him the Prince had had an ugly fall, and, as soon as he showed signs of coming round, I left and went off to my ship, in a condition of pitiable consternation and remorse.

I nearly shot myself that night. I took out my revolver twice and laid it between my teeth, and was only stopped by the consideration that, if I did it, my suicide would be connected with the affair, and some garbled account of the brawl and of what was behind it would leak out.

The next day old Count von Augener, who had been telegraphed for, came to my cabin. He hated me as he had hated my father, and I knew it.

The interview was brief enough, and he sounded the keynote in the sentence with which he opened it.

"You are still alive, lieutenant?" he said, bending on me a piercing look from under his shaggy, beetling brows.

"Say what you have to say, and be good enough to keep from taunts," I answered, and then told him the thought that alone had stopped me from shooting myself.

He listened in silence, and at the close nodded.

"You have enough wit when the wine's out, and you understand what you have done. Were you other than you are, you would be tried by court-martial and shot. But your act is worse than that of a mutineer—you are a coward"—I started to my feet—"because you have struck a man you know cannot demand satisfaction."

I sank again into my chair and covered my face in shame, for the taunt was true. But to have it thus flung at me ruthlessly was worse than a red-hot brand plunged into my flesh.

The old man stopped and looked at me, pleased that he had thus tortured me.

"There is but one course open to you. You know that?"

"I know it," I answered sullenly.

"Only one reparation you can make. Your death can appear to be either accidental or natural—anyhow, provided that it is at once. You can have a week; after that, if you are alive, you will die an infamous death."

"I understand," I replied, rising as he rose. "Will you give my assurance to the Prince and the Emperor that ..."

"I am no tale-bearer, sir," he answered sternly. "The one desire now is to forget that you ever lived." And flinging these harsh words at me, he left me humiliated, ashamed, angry, and impotently remorseful.

Not another word should pass my lips. How should I die? It was not so easy as it seemed. A fatal accident to appear genuine called for clever stage-management, and I did not see how to arrange matters.

I applied for leave, and went to Berlin. There was one man there who could help me—old Dr. Mein. He was a bachelor recluse, an Englishman who had been naturalized, and in the old days he had been in love with my mother. It was she who told me the tale just before her death, when urging me to trust him should I ever find myself in need of an absolutely reliable, level-headed friend. I knew that he loved me for the English blood in my veins. I told him what I had to do; but at first did not mention the cause. He listened intently, questioned me shrewdly, and then stopped to think.

"You want me to murder you, or at least give you the means of murdering yourself?" he said bluntly.

"If you don't help me, I shall do it without you, that's all," I returned.

He paused again to think, pursing up his lips, and fixing his keen blue eyes upon me.

"I have loved you like my own son, and you ask me to kill you?"

"My mother would have had me come to you, because I am in trouble."

"You have no right to be in trouble. You are no fool. You have all your father's wealth—millions of marks; you have your mother's English blood—which is much better; you have her brains—which is best of all; you have a noble profession—the sea; you enjoy the Imperial favor and friendship—a slippery honor, maybe; and you are certain of rapid promotion to almost any height you please. Why, then, should you want to die?"

"Because I have sacrificed everything by my reckless temper," I answered, and told him what had happened. "I have no option but to die," I concluded. "If you will not help me——" I broke the sentence and got up to go.

"I didn't say I wouldn't help you—I will." I sat down again. "You don't care how you die, so long as it's quickly?" I shook my head. "Very well. I have in my laboratory the bacilli of a deadly fever. I will inject the virus into your veins. In three days you will be in the fever's grip, and in less than a week you will be dead." I took off my coat and bared my arms to show my readiness. "I make only one condition. You must be ill here; I must watch the progress of the experiment."

"Nothing will suit me better," I returned.

He made the injection there and then, and gave me two days to be away and wind up my affairs; and when I returned to him he made another injection and put me to bed. That night I was in a raging fever. All the paraphernalia of a sick-bed were soon in evidence, and the following day it was known all over Berlin that the wealthy young Count von Rudloff was down in the grip of a fever at the house of a once well-known physician, Dr. Mein. The little house was besieged with callers. A few only were admitted. Von Augener was one, and he brought with him the Court physician.

I grew worse rapidly, and only in intermittent gleams of intelligence was I conscious of the lean, grizzled face and watchful blue eyes of the doctor bending over me, assuring me that I was a most interesting case, and rapidly growing worse. For three days this continued, until in a moment of consciousness I heard him say to the nurse:

"He cannot last through the night," and the woman turned and looked sympathetically toward the bed.

I tried to speak, but could not. I could scarcely move; but they noticed my restlessness, and the doctor came and bent over me.

"Am I dying?" I whispered.

"Yes. You must have courage. You are dying."

"I am glad. Thank you. I have no pain."

He turned away, and after a moment gave me my medicine. Then with a touch soft like a woman's he smoothed the bedclothes, and bending down put his lips to my forehead, and left me glad, as I had said, that the end had come thus calmly.

I must have become unconscious again almost directly after that, for I know nothing of what happened until I awoke gradually and found myself in a place that was pitch dark. I was lying on the floor, though it felt soft like a mattress, and when I stretched out my arm I touched a wall that was soft like the floor.

I was quick in jumping to a conclusion. The doctor had fooled me, and probably had fooled everybody else, about my illness and death. If I had ever been ill, I was quite well now, and I scrambled up and strode about the place, feeling all the walls and floor and everything within my reach. I soon knew where I was. It was the old fellow's padded room. I knew, too, that I could do no good by struggling or shouting or trying to get out of it. I must wait, and I sat down on the floor to think.

After what seemed like many hours an electric light was switched on, and I saw a sheet of paper pinned to the wall. It was a letter from the doctor.

"I have done what your mother would have wished. You have the makings of a real man in you, and you must not die. Every one thinks you dead; and not a soul suspects. Your funeral took place yesterday, amid all the pomp of Court mourning; and all the papers to-day are full of descriptions of your career, your illness, death, and funeral. But you will live to do yourself justice; if need be, in another name. Your next career you must make, however, and not merely inherit. But you are your mother's son, and will not flinch."

The old man had known me better than I knew myself. I had been glad to die; but the pulse of life runs strong in the twenties; and the shrewd old beggar was right. Half an hour later I was glad to live; and when he came to me I was quite ready to thank him for what he had done.

We had a long talk about my future, and he urged me to go to England.

"You can be an Englishman; indeed, you are one already. Your family must have rich and powerful friends there; and there you can make a career."

But I would not give my assent. I had no plans, and was in the mood to make none.

"I will see," I answered. "I am a dead man, and the dead are more the concern of Providence than the living. I will drift for a while in the back waters," and I shrugged my shoulders.

I made no plans. That night I left Berlin, and as the train whirled me southward I tried with resolute hand to make the barrier that shut out the old life so bullet-proof that not even the stinging thoughts of impotent remorse and regret could wound me. I was only human, however, and barely twenty-three; and the sorrow of my loneliness was like a cankered wound. I felt like a shipwrecked derelict waif on the wide callous sea of stranger humanity.

And like a derelict I drifted for a while, and accident determined a course for me. At Frankfort, where I stayed a considerable time, a chance meeting in a hotel gave me as a companion an actor, and in his room at the theatre one night he asked me if I would care to join his company. All life was to be but a burlesque for me, and, as it seemed the training might be useful, I consented.

I threw myself into the mimic business with ardor, and stayed with the company four years. Under the guise of professional enthusiasm I became a past master in the art of making up, and altered my appearance completely. I changed my voice until it was two full tones lower than by nature, and I practised an expression and accent altogether unlike my own. Under the tuition of a clever old acrobat, who had deformed himself until he was past work, I changed entirely the character of my walk and carriage. I cultivated assiduously marked peculiarities of gesture and manner; and by constant massage even the contour of my features was altered, and lines and wrinkles were brought with results that astonished me.

After some three years of this I tested these results by a visit to the only man who knew me to be alive—Dr. Mein. I wished him to know what I was doing, but was not willing to trust the secret on paper. I went to him in my professional name, Heinrich Fischer, and consulted him for about half an hour about an imaginary complaint, without his having an idea of my identity. Once or twice he looked at me with an expression of rather doubting inquiry; but he did not know me. He wrote me a prescription, and, rising to go, I laid a fee on his table.

Then I lingered on, and he glanced at me in polite surprise. I smiled; and he fixed his little glittering eyes on mine steadily, as if I were a lunatic.

"Have you any more bacilli to spare, doctor?" I whispered.

A start, a quick frown, and the closing together of his eyebrows showed his surprise. Then he wheeled me round to the light.

"Are you——?"

He stopped short, his face alight with doubt and interrogation.

"I am Heinrich Fischer, an actor—now," I replied.

The last word was quite enough, and the tough old man almost broke down in the delight of recognition. When I explained to him the elaborate processes by which I had changed my figure, looks, and voice, he grew intensely interested in me as a strange experiment, and declared that not a soul in all the world would recognize me.

My visit was a brief one, though he pressed me earnestly to stay with him; and when I would not he said he would come to me at Frankfort, and that I must be his adopted son. But he never came, and we never met again. A letter or two passed between us—I had altered even my handwriting—and then a year later came the news to me that he was dead—had died suddenly in the midst of his work—and that I was left his heir.

This again changed my life, for his fortune gave me abundant means; and as I considered my actor training had been sufficient, I resolved to close that chapter of my life.

It would have been a commonplace affair enough, with an accompaniment of nothing more than a few mutual personal regrets, but for one incident. One of the actresses—a handsome, passionate woman, named Clara Weylin—had done me the quite unsolicited honor to fall violently in love with me; and when, at the time of parting, I could not tell her that we should ever meet again—for I had not the least intention or wish to do so—she was first tearful, then hysterical, and at last vindictively menacing.

"There's a secret about you, Fischer," she cried passionately. "I've always thought so; and, mark me, I'll find it out some day; and then you'll remember this, and your treatment of Clara Weylin. Look to yourself."

I tried to reason away her somewhat theatrical resentment, but she interpreted my words as an indication that she had struck home; and she flung away, with a toss of the head, another threat, and a look of bitter anger. I thought no more of the incident then—though afterward I had occasion enough to recall it; and when the evening brought me a letter from her, couched in very loving terms, I tossed it into the fire with a feeling akin to contempt. The next morning I left the town early, and was off on a purposeless and once more planless ramble.

With the stage I dropped also my stage name, for I had no wish to be known as an ex-play-actor; and as the old doctor's original counsel chanced to occur to me, I turned English. I now let my beard and mustaches grow; and I was satisfied that, with my changed carriage and looks, not a soul in the whole fatherland would recognize in Henry Fisher, a sober-looking English gentleman, travelling for pleasure and literary purposes, the once well-known and dashing naval lieutenant and Court favorite, the Count von Rudloff.

I moved from point to point aimlessly for some months until the vapid, vacuous monotony of the existence sickened and appalled me. Then suddenly chance or Fate opened a gate of life.

 

Author: Arthur Williams Marchmont (1853–1923)

Biography: Arthur William Marchmont was probably born in 1853 in London, the son of the Rev. Henry Marchmont. His mother appears to have died at his birth or shortly after. He attended Pembroke College, Oxford, where he took a degree before entering Lincoln's Inn. He left law and turned to journalism, editing the North Eastern Daily Gazette and the Lancashire Daily Post. In the mid-1890s, he left journalism to devote himself to fiction. In total, he wrote some 35 novels which often featured exciting plots and foreign settings. In 1892, he married Fanny Jaques but the couple had no children. Marchmont died on 2 July 1923 in Bath a fortnight after his wife Fanny.

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